


it's the morning star

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: Christmas, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 03:50:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt:  It’s 3am on Christmas morning and Karen gets a phone call from Matt telling her to get dressed and go outside. He’s waiting for her in his car.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's the morning star

It’s not so much the waiting as the anticipation that gets to Karen. She can deal with time passing slowly, can retreat into a rich inner life at the drop of a hat – a skill learned on long family drives, in cold green rooms at auditions, in her trailer after hours while he’s still shooting; those minutes and hours are arduous and filled with impatience, sure, but they’re manageable precisely because they’re so boring, because every second isn’t filled with a steady beat of  _what why when where how_  that threatens to bubble over at any moment.

It’s the anticipation that gets her, and it’s the exact same lump in her throat as has been there every year for as long as she can remember, the jumping-inwardly, running-downstairs-after-dark, heart-in-her-mouth feeling of about-to-explode that accompanies precisely two evenings every year; the night of November 27th, and the night of December 24th.

_Just under a month ago,  that same sense of growing excitement was only resolved when her shaking fingers managed to tear open the envelope, and uncover the two return flight tickets that he’d been hiding in his jacket pocket, unbearably smug, all evening. They landed in New York less than a day later, still technically on her birthday, and managed to cram in almost a week of totally-not-romantic, totally-not-platonic, totally-nothing-but-them, time together before the spell was lifted by fans at the TARDIS bar, and normality resumed._

So it’s for no small reason that Karen’s been staring at the clock all night, willing it to tick away the hours where it would be socially unacceptable to phone and say “Happy Christmas.” It’s not like there’s any thing in particular she’s waiting up for; there’s no tree for her to inspect after lights-out, no presents for her to shake and rattle and prod experimentally, no plate of mince pies for her to steal and blame on Santa. Those days are long gone, now, almost a shadow of the past ever since she moved out and started training in London, and for the last couple of years Karen has thought that maybe the magic is something she’s grown out of

_Even last year turned out a lot less comforting and lovely than she had hoped.  It wasn’t that she was alone in Cardiff. She’d gone home to Scotland for the first Christmas in five years._

_Home, except it wasn’t, not when there was a constant ache in the pit of her stomach for the familiar sights and sounds of Upper Boat, for the reassuring bustle and anonymity of Cardiff Bay, for Matt just a phone call and a fifteen-minute walk away. Having Caitlin there helped, in a surreal way – she was a link, however tenuous, between the Gillan family and the Doctor Who one, and Karen ended up talking to her most of all when Dad’s jibes about the perils of fame and Aunt Emma’s smiling insinuations about on-set romances got too much; they hid away in Karen’s old room, a plate of mince pies between them, and watched back the brand-new box set that she’d – of course – found under the tree on Christmas morning. The card was unsigned save for a cartoon TARDIS, and the package stamped in Northampton, but what really gave it away was the “Kaz” in the first line of the address._

_This year is the first year she’s been able to look forward to in every sense of the word, the memory of Matt, sitting between Caitlin and her mum on the settee with a paper crown half-balanced on his head still glowing strongly in her mind. He’d “just been in the area,” which was ridiculous the day before New Year’s Eve and hundreds of miles away from anyone he could possibly be planning on visiting, but her family had swallowed the story amicably enough. They spent the day arguing about who’s Christmas had been more unbearable, and throwing tinsel at each other, and squashing up against each other on the settee when seven more people decided to join them for_ Home  _Alone, and by the time he left the next morning, more things had been left unsaid between them than would ever need saying._

Karen hasn’t heard from Matt in a few days, but that’s not what’s bothering her; they can go days, weeks, months even, without texting or phoning when they’re filming; every day is spent together, and the shared cars home more often than not result in her curled up in half of his too-big bed or him folded awkwardly into her too-small sofa, and further communication just doesn’t always seem necessary. So she isn’t worried – they only finished filming two days ago, after all, and he did say he was going to be busy.

No, what worries her is the last text from him, sent just hours after they left the studio for the final time in 2011.

**Working on something, by the way. Expect a call Christmas morning. Early.**

Well, it’s Christmas morning now, and maybe he didn’t mean  _quite_  this early when he said “early,” but Karen has already accepted the truth of her total inability to sleep tonight. The TV has been abandoned in favour of the internet – there’s nothing good on, anyway, not at half past two in the morning on Christmas Day, and she’s fallen criminally behind on every blog she follows in the last couple of weeks of manic filming and impossibly long hours.

Half an hour later, she’s so engrossed in tracing back a conversation on twitter between Arthur and about three different fans that she almost misses the first ring of the phone.

Almost; it’s already registering on the edge of her consciousness, and Karen is out her chair before she’s quite sure why. Then the second ring comes, seeming slightly louder and more insistent to her ears, and her hand flies out to snatch the phone from its cradle on the wall.

“Hello?”

“Karen!” he sounds surprised, which she thinks is a bit rich coming from the guy who’s phoning  _her_  at three in the morning. “I didn’t wake you?”

“Couldn’t sleep yet,” she manages, as if she’s up this late for no reason every night. “What’s up?”

“Well, remember I told you I was planning something for Christmas…?”

“I…” Karen forces herself to pause, grinning stupidly at her reflection for this brilliantly suave move. “Oh,  _that_! Yeah, sure.”

“Well…”

“What’s ‘well,’ what do you…Oh,” she breathes slowly, creating a – hopefully – convincing sound of dawning realisation. “You mean  _now_?”

“Yes, now,” he laughs, and she knows he’s seen right through her. “I’m outside, get a coat and come meet me.”

Ten minutes later, they’re driving through the silent street; the radio’s on and playing softly, and the car smells of gingerbread. A heavy weight of inevitability presses down on Karen and makes it impossible for her to break the wall of silence that Matt’s built up around himself, and anyway she’s not sure she wants to even try and speak – he’s almost scaring her with his purposeful stillness; the hands on the steering wheel are calm and sure, and his expression never changes from the unreadable, slightly-mocking half-smile of  _I know something you don’t know_ he greeted her with outside her building.

Karen gives up looking sideways at his profile to gauge a reaction, and tries to sleep.

“We’re here,” he says three hours later, bringing the car to a smooth stop and getting out immediately. The door slams swiftly behind him, and Karen is left peering out at the darkness, alone in the car now and her heart hammering loudly in her ears.

Gathering up her courage takes more effort than Karen was banking on. It’s not that she’s nervous about the surprise, although she  _is_ ¸ and it’s not that she’s slightly worried about what Matt could possibly be up to, although she  _is_ , and it’s definitely not that she’s scared of him or scared for herself – perversely, Karen has never felt more secure than here, sitting in a darkened car in an unknown location at six in the morning with no one in sight. Well, and how could she possibly feel unsafe? Matt brought her here. Matt’s waiting for her outside.

What scares Karen is her own fear, and the reason for it. It’s something she’s barely let herself think about for what feels like forever, now, and it’s something that’s been growing harder and harder to ignore. It’s there in the extra five minutes she spends in the bathroom every morning even though she knows she’s only going to get in a car and get driven to a hair and make-up trailer. It’s there in the sudden impulse to be interesting, and funny, and  _trademark Kaz_ , every time they step in front of the _Confidential_ cameras – the act serving both as a mask she hopes will seem alluring, and a shield she prays will stop her from revealing anything more.

It’s here, now, in the roaring in her ears and the pounding in her chest and the tremble in her fingers. When she opens that door, she is going to be outside. In the dark. Quite possibly in the starlight. Most certainly alone. With Matt. And that combination shouldn’t be enough to make her terrified of herself, but it is.

“Kaz!” A knock on the window startles Karen out of introspection, and she smiles instinctively, unbuckling the seat belt and opening the car door.

“So!” she says, wrapping her coat sleeves around herself and looking around; Matt is standing a couple of feet away, and nothing else is in sight. “Where are we?”

“Look,” Matt tells her simply. “Let your eyes adjust. It’s a bit of a walk, but you should be able to see quite soon…”

Karen looks, and slowly her eyes begin to pick out shapes in the dark; slightly darker shades of black against the shadow, a familiar but absolutely impossible silhouette on the hill. She tells herself she must be imagining things, that they can’t actually be  _here_  – and they walk in silence for what feels like a short eternity.

It’s only when they stop at a low gate and Karen sees the ‘Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted’ signs that she allows herself to realise where they are.

“Stonehenge,” she says quietly, turning to him with the first of a dozen questions teetering on the tip of her tongue.

“Don’t worry!” Matt holds up a bunch of keys with a winning smile. “I’ve got permission. We’re not breaking and entering, see – “he unlocks the gate and beckons her inside the grounds. “What did I break?”

She bites back a smile at this lifted moment, and resists the urge to tell him to script his own material next time he wants a cheap trick, and follows him inside.

They sit under the ancient stones, looking up at the stars and not saying much at all – once in a while, Matt takes her hand to guide her eye to a particular constellation, or Karen inches closer to his shoulder and complains about the cold; but for the most part, they’re silent, each of them just looking at the other every moment they feel safe to do so. And, inevitably, it isn’t long before their gazes meet. Karen flushes; her instinct is to look away and laugh, but something in Matt’s expression makes her stop, and ask, “Why are we here, Matt? I mean,” seeing the slightly wounded look that surfaces and disappears again almost too quickly for her to notice in his eyes, Karen hastens to rush on. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing, this is the best Christmas morning ever –  _ever –_  but. I mean. I get the feeling there’s a… another thing coming? I don’t know.”

“You’re… You’re not wrong,” he concedes quietly, with a soft laugh. “Seeing right through my mysteries as ever, Kaz?”

“Something like that,” Karen smiles, waiting for him to continue.

“I thought we should come here because it was the closest I could get to real life,” Matt begins, his cheeks slightly pink in the early-morning grey and his mouth tripping over the words. “I mean, real life, for us. Doctor-Who-real-life, because that’s the realest place there is, for us, I think. Early mornings and late evenings and all-nighters, breakfast, lunch, dinner, midnight dinner, we’ve had it all together, but only when – only when we’ve had to, when we’ve been out on a location shoot or locked in the TARDIS set for three days straight or… You know what I mean?” 

He pauses briefly, waiting for her nod, and then drives on. “Sometimes I used to think that was the  _only_ reason I was spending all my days with you in some sense of the word – that the job taking over my life was the only reason you were  _never_  out of my thoughts any more – but I was wrong. It wasn’t the only reason, just the most obvious one. I know now, but I didn’t then, even it was there from honest-to-god the first time we met in the audition room, and it scared –  _scares_  – the life out of me sometimes, Karen, but I have to – see, we can’t just keep on –“

“Matt-“the interruption is said before Karen can stop herself, her hand reaching out almost involuntarily to take his. “Just… Don’t mess ar– I mean – what are you trying to  _say_ , Matt?”

She forces out the last two words with an almost-sob of frustration; her mind has leaped so far ahead already that she knows:  this is the end. If she’s misunderstood him now, there can be no going back to the indefinable haze of Matt-and-Kaz. They’re going to set the record straight, and it’s going to happen now, whether she’s ready for it or not.

“Karen, I…” A shudder passes over Matt’s face, and his jaw clenches almost imperceptibly. Then, of all things, he chuckles. “Sorry to borrow from someone else again, but I…Karen.” He’s looking at her  _totally_  seriously now, but Karen thinks she can see the act, thinks she can tell his acting-totally-serious look from his really-totally-serious look, and this is most definitely the former. “I think you’re a missus hottie…ness… And I would very much like to go out with you. For texting. And scones.”

Karen raises one eyebrow, and says nothing, waiting for him to crack; when he smiles wryly, there’s a tentatively genuine question in his eyes, and it’s one she answers silently, immediately, fervently, without having to think.

The game still needs completing, though, and it’s for that reason that she frowns at him, a smile tugging at her lips as she asks, “You really haven’t done this before, have you?”

“No,” the smile that’s lighting up his eyes is threatening to take over Matt’s entire being, but he manages to keep the act going for a few more beats. “I haven’t.”

Karen laughs then, laughs because it’s the only possible action that doesn’t seem dizzyingly impossible, and pushes him over into the grass. “Get your own material next time, Smith,” she says, giggling when he reaches up and pulls her down into the cool wet green next to him.

Somehow, their hands stay connected, long after silence has fallen around them again.

The stones are almost completely visible now in the stillness of just-before-dawn, and Karen catches herself idly following every crevice, every line of moss, every roughly weathered marking on the tall sentinels of agelessness above them. It’s a delaying tactic, an excuse for her long silence, and she knows it. Knows it, and almost hates herself for it – but she can’t quite muster up the strength to turn her head and face Matt, yet, either.

Eventually, though, it seems beyond ridiculous not to say  _something_  – even just one word, now, seems better than holding back the tidal wave of jumbled half-sentences and unfinished thoughts for one more second.

“Hey, Matt,” she says pointing upwards. “What’s that one called?”

Matt follows her gaze; she’s pointing up at a star, one of the few remaining ones to still be visible in the early-morning light.

“It’s the morning star,” he tells her. “Venus. Why?”

“Oh, yeah, we-“The tipping point of  _now or never_ has never been more tangible, and with one breath Karen tilts the scales once and for all. “We get married and have a daughter, and that’s her name.”

“Fine,” Matt breathes, the word ghosting across her cheek when she turns to look at him.

“Fine?” The word burns her tongue, and Karen thinks it’s a done deal the moment she manages to drag her gaze back up from his lips to look into his eyes.

_Their lips meet for the first time under a rising Christmas sun, with Stonehenge standing silent and watching behind them; and those same stones watch as, a year later to the day, he slides a slim band of metal around her finger. The sunlight hits the gold, and Karen can’t look away._


End file.
